A national historical trauma can shape a writer’s formal style unconsciously

Evidence

It is not hard to see why a German writer would want to blank out the middle part of the 20th century; and many of the formal anachronisms of Sebald’s writing – its strange sense that this is the 21st century seen through the restrained yet ornate prose of an early 20th century essayist – perhaps arise from this desire, just as the novels themselves are about the various, ultimately failed, ruses – conscious and unconscious – that damaged psyches deploy to erase traumas and construct new identities. — Mark Fisher, Ghosts of My Life, 505

Categorization

• XREF: This is the hauntological core of the book — style as ruse against trauma — echoing Fisher’s argument about 21st-century culture’s inability to access its own lost futures. — connects to: Fiction can replay historical trauma with a wished-for different outcome — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 140; Trauma’s fragmented memory demanded a nonlinear narrative form — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America…, 374; Recent traumas resist nation-building reframing until they grow mythic — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 738 (+1 more)
• QUESTION: Worth chasing whether critics have separately proven this biographical reading of Sebald’s style, or whether it’s purely speculative on Fisher’s part.

Broader Connections

• Trauma’s fragmented memory demanded a nonlinear narrative form #exemplifies (0.85) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Begin Again, 374
• Fiction can replay historical trauma with a wished-for different outcome #expands (0.80) — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 140
• Literary style flaws reflect their authors’ historical moment, not merely personal failure. #expands (0.80) — Fredric Jameson, Marxism and Form, 98
• Recent traumas resist nation-building reframing until they grow mythic #expands (0.75) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 738